And the reason is Camille

I have a new musical obsession this week, and its name is Camille.

She’s a French singer, who you’re probably unaware that you’re aware of through her work with Nouvelle Vague. That band’s easy-listening covers of Guns of Brixton, Teenage Kicks and Too Drunk To Fuck have soundtracked countless adverts, promos and news packages over the last year (okay, with the possible exception of the last one).

Anyway, it turns out Camille is an artist in her own right with an album called Le Fil coming out in the UK next week. But why wait when you can import it now from Amazon.fr and be ahead of all your friends by, ooooh, days.

It’s a hard album to describe. It’s mostly a capella, but it’s nothing like G4 or Bobby McFerrin. I’d say she sounds like Bjork, but that might put off anyone who doesn’t like listening to musical hiccups.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to put up a video of her performing live. Recorded from French television, this clip totally shows up all those American Divas who breathily exclaim ‘my voice is a precious instrument’. Camille really uses her voice as an instrument – and in doing so she’s playful, inventive and (best of all) melodic. It’s ace.

I love being right

There’s nothing better than being proved right about everything and being able to go Ha ha, told you so to the entire world. So, it is with great pleasure that I bring you the following news:

1) Robbie Williams is crap, after all.
His new single went into the charts at 22 this week. Ouch.

2) Girls Aloud are actually rather splendid.
Both The Times and The Guardian say their tour is fabborific, like what I did at the weekend.

3) Bands have realised that albums are meant to fit on one side of a D90 cassette.
All of this year’s best CDs (Gnarls Barkley, Pet Shop Boys and, especially, The Raconteurs) clock in at under 45 minutes. I have been banging on about this for years, although I think the artists in question may have come to this realisation on their own.

4) James Blunt has been banned!
Okay, only by one radio station in South East England. But it’s a start, right? (read more about this fabulous story right here)

Gig Review: Girls Aloud

We’ve just got back from Birmingham where, following a series of scheduling mistakes, we ended up seeing Girls Aloud’s Chemistry Tour a week earlier than we’d planned.

It was completely worth the 250 mile round trip. Not only did we get a fantastic hotel, but the gig was one of the best arena concerts I’ve seen in a long time. There were magic tricks, there were show tunes, there were fireworks so close to me they’re still imprinted onto my retina.

The Girls themeselves were much more comfortable on stage than on last year’s theatre tour. The choreography was more complex and energetic, while the vocal performances were bereft of nerves. Mind you, there were more than a few occasions where someone’s microphone wasn’t faded up at the appropriate time, which suggests a certain amount of miming – although this never affected Nadine, the group’s most accomplished vocalist. Blimey, that girl has a pair of lungs on her and no mistake.

The musicians were a marked improvement, too, handling the complex arrangement of Xenomania’s hits without breaking a sweat. Out of 20+ songs, the highlights were the full-out thrash of Wake Me Up, an Amerie-enhanced Love Machine and a surprisingly energetic cover of Kaiser Chief’s I Predict A Riot -although they chickened out of singing “Girls run around with no clothes on to borrow a pound for a condom”, changing it to ‘bus home’. For shame.

I also spotted a concert first: The inhaler roadie, on-hand throughout the show for Nicola to have a puff.

There were a few minor quibbles with the evening, however. The concert was very squarely aimed at kids, with a sub-Nickolodeon ‘plot’ suggesting the Girls were created in a laboratory by a mad professor. This was completely unnecessary, considering that the five rows in front and behind us were predominantly 18-and-over.

The costumes, too, were a little peculiar. Apparently someone in the GA camp believes high-waisted shorts should be resurrected from the 1980s; Kimberley seemed to have a perpetual problem with ill-fitting bras (they’ve got a measurement service at M&S, you know); and poor old Nadine had to dance around in a tutu for half an hour. Not a good look, although the accompanying fishnets were most welcome.

Costume nightmares aside, the girls seemed to be having a great time. They were so relaxed that when it wasn’t their turn to sing or dance they’d stand having a natter with each other. (Nadine even managed a crafty snog with one of the dancers at one point).

They do need a bit of work on their stage patter, though. Nicola broke the ice with this classic: “It’s great to see all those banners out there… and all the official merchandise“.

Anyway, a great night was had by all and Birmingham was a much nicer city than I expected. To the people who bought our tickets for Wembley next Saturday: You are going to have a fantastic evening.

Setlist:
Biology
No Good Advice
Waiting
Love Machine (including 1 Thing)
Bohemian Like You interlude
Long Hot Summer
Whole Lotta History
Watch Me Go
I Predict A Riot
See The Day
Sound Of The Underground
Musical Medley:
Fame
Flashdance (What A Feeling)
Footloose
The Show
Intro / Models
Racy Lacey
I’ll Stand By You
Biology Reprise

Encore:
Wild Horses
Wake Me Up
Jump

Top picture from Robmacca’s blog

All other photos courtesy of Emmie on the popjustice messageboards. Thank you!

Punk news

Here’s something rather cool – the BBC have put together a 5-minute round-up of the week’s news in video.

Nothing new or exciting there, you might think. But this doesn’t suffer from the usual straight-laced BBC presentation – it has attitude in spades, not to mention a devilish wit and a cheery disregard for the normal conventions of telenews.

It’s not even a slightly embarassing BBC3 attempt to engage with the kids. No, this is getting a big push: going out on News 24, the BBC’s News website and the red button interactive services. They also plan to launch it as a vodcast, but I understand there are some problems with the yawn-worthy corporation guidelines on competitive practices.

But the very best thing of all about this programme is that they let me write the music for it! The fools!

The 5-minute round-up is called Story Fix (for news junkies – do you see what they did there?) and it starts today. Can’t find a link for it on the web yet, but I’ll chuck one up here as soon as I spot it.

In the meantime, here’s a sneak preview of what it sounds like without all the bothersome talking and pictures over the top.
Right-click and select “save as” to download.

Video of the Week: Ms Jackson

There’s no high-faluting thesis behind this week’s choice. Quite simply, it’s a hip hop video based on Doctor Doolittle instead of a porn movie.

Quite why this should be the case is never explained. The song itself is a heartfelt examination of André 3000s break-up from his wife, Erykah Badu. Making clear the guilt and sadness he feels about his divorce, he asks Ms Jackson for forgiveness. In real life, Ms Jackson is Badu’s mum, whose real name is Kolleen Wright.

History does not record whether the song’s plea for understanding changed Wright’s opinion of her former son-in-law, nor whether she appreciated his message being delivered by a parrot on MTV.

Buy Outkast’s Greatest Hits on DVD at Amazon

Shock news! Extra Imbruglia!

Did you know that Natalie Imbruglia has siblings? Nor did I until I came across her little sister’s myspace page

Laura, for that is her name, is also a recording artist and she’s about to release a new single. It goes I want a magical washing machine that doubles as a jukebox. I kid you not, dear readers.

It seems Laura is one of those people who is either endearingly quirky or dangerously psychotic depending on your point of view. Take, for example, her latest blog entry:

Did I sign some dude’s chest last night and draw arrows pointing to his nipples and then write ‘Nipples!’ excitedly? I think I did.
New rule- Laura doesn’t sign skin. It’s un-ladylike. And Lord knows I am VERY ladylike normally.

Really, all this needs to push her over the line into Shahbaz* territory is for her to sign off AND I LOVE CRISPS! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

The song’s quite catchy, though.

* For those of you who aren’t following Big Brother 7, Shahbaz is a housemate who is so very deeply unwell he believes he is Joan Crawford, when in fact he is a prancing Scottish queen who is so many sandwhiches short of a picnic he’s in danger of being half of a (very theatrical) Cream Cracker. This is no word of a lie.

Shock news! Extra Imbruglia!

Did you know that Natalie Imbruglia has siblings? Nor did I until I came across her little sister’s myspace page

Laura, for that is her name, is also a recording artist and she’s about to release a new single. It goes I want a magical washing machine that doubles as a jukebox. I kid you not, dear readers.

It seems Laura is one of those people who is either endearingly quirky or dangerously psychotic depending on your point of view. Take, for example, her latest blog entry:

Did I sign some dude’s chest last night and draw arrows pointing to his nipples and then write ‘Nipples!’ excitedly? I think I did.
New rule- Laura doesn’t sign skin. It’s un-ladylike. And Lord knows I am VERY ladylike normally.

Really, all this needs to push her over the line into Shahbaz* territory is for her to sign off AND I LOVE CRISPS! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

The song’s quite catchy, though.

* For those of you who aren’t following Big Brother 7, Shahbaz is a housemate who is so very deeply unwell he believes he is Joan Crawford, when in fact he is a prancing Scottish queen who is so many sandwhiches short of a picnic he’s in danger of being half of a (very theatrical) Cream Cracker. This is no word of a lie.

10 reasons why Muse’s new single is the second-best song of the year*

1) It is called Supermassive Black Hole and it sounds like Radiohead have seduced Goldfrapp in a seedy bar-room somewhere in London’s “respectable” Soho after a heavy night on the shandies.

2) After which, they took each other home and did “it” on a bed of black silk sheets strewn with rose petals (also black).

3) The resulting love-child has been put up for adoption and ended up in the motherly arms of Britney Spears.

4) And then done some of that milky sick down her back while being ‘burped’.

5) It is not sung by any ex-members of Blue.

6) In the video, the band wear head-to-toe bodystockings and then have their faces projected on top. Everyone will be doing this in two weeks time, mark my words.

7) Muse fans hate it. “It sounds just like a fucking song to dance to when you’re drunk,” one complained.

8) It sounds just like a fucking song to dance to when you’re drunk.

9) It has leaked all over the internet like a great big goth tear because, you know, of all the pain and suffering in the world. Why do my parents hate me? Maybe I should just end it all, etc.

10) And someone has done a mashup that combines it with Britney’s Do Something – which is bound to lead to some really filthy fan fiction in about 15 seconds time.

Right-click this link and select “Save As…” for a sneaky preview

And get supermassive (geddit?!) Britney mashup at Good Weather for Airstrikes

Creep yourself out bigtime by watching the video

* The best single is still Nelly Furtdao’s Maneater

"Fame" at last

Oh dear. Being on the radio isn’t as glamorous as it’s cracked up to be…

Last night, thorough a combination of weak-will and idiocy, I was roped into appearing on the BBC World Service. They billed me as an ‘entertainment reporter and composer’, which is technically true even if it does sound a little bit grand compared to “writes about music and plays the piano”.

My mission was to be Simon Cowell for five minutes on the World Have Your Say programme in a feature they called “Your-o-vision”.

Although, clearly, that pun doesn’t work on radio.

So I put on a tight black vest, pulled my trousers up to chest height and set about my task, judging music from podcasts and blogs around the world.

The majority of the ‘entrants’ were actually very good – and I ended up exaggerating my minor quibbles with the songs to avoid saying “yeah, I quite like that, actually” after every track.

It was all over very quickly (or, perhaps, the vest cut off the blood supply to my brain and I blacked out). I gave my douze points to a creole-style song from Colombia, but the other judges overruled and British punk band Itchy Tits won the contest.

I’ve put a link to all of the songs featured on the programme below, because I don’t feel any of them deserved to be judged in this cruel manner. Certainly not by me, anyway.

There’s also an MP3 of my appearance, which I’ve provided out of sheer vanity.

If only I’d asked for a fee…

King Elio Boom: Il Fulo is available at WFMU

Nathan Asher: Turn Up The Faders is available on myspace

Itchy Tits: Videophone is available on Xan Phillips podcast
(Xan was also on last night’s show – so read his blog too!)

Hear the whole shameful episode on this short mp3

By the way, if you want my opinion on this year’s actual Eurovision contest, I say it’s Lithuania all the way. This country either has a fantastic sense of humour or appalling taste in music. Or maybe it’s both…

The song is utterly devoid of any tune or progression, and the band, LT United, would appear to consist of six blokes they found waiting for their wives outside the changing rooms in Lithuania’s equivalent of Debenhams.

But their lyrics are superb: “We’re the winners of Euorvision,” they repeat, “Vote for us / vote for us”. The band’s official website even redirects you to www.winnersofeurovision.com!

If this brazen attempt at mind-control doesn’t work on you, then you’re not human and I claim my five pounds.

Video of the week: Oh My Gosh

Ah, Basement Jaxx. They of the eclectic beats and samples. Darlings of the critics, and keepers of the flame of dance music, except with a tune, and that.

They’re undoubtedly one of the best live acts you could ever hope to see – capturing in flesh the manic, kaleidoscopic, multiculturalism of their music.

And yet, for a band with such visual flair, their videos are mostly hopeless. Directors trying to match the unfettered invention of the songs are hampered by restrictive budgets and that curse of all dance promos: uncharismatic front-men.

There are precisely two good Basement Jaxx videos. Romeo is a pastiche of Bollywood dance sequences and Oh My Gosh, featured here, shows a day in the life of a retirement ‘village’.

The action centres around singer Vula Malinga’s flirtation with another resident. She has some superb comic timing, which gives the clip real personality, and the real-life pensioners who make up the extras get to handle the backing vocals, which is a wonderful touch.

It’s directed by Matt Kirkby, who has also helmed videos for Keane and Jamiroquai amongst others. Most of his work has a comic twist or inventive motif. Perhaps the most memorable is for Markus Nikolai’s “Bushes”, in which a fixed camera records the faces of several women having their first bikini wax (you can see it on youtube).

This one, though, will make you chuckle while tapping your feet. Which is a much nicer feeling, don’t you think?

Buy Basement Jaxx’s greatest hits DVD

By the way, Keli left a comment a couple of weeks ago asking for 187 Lockdown’s “Kung Fu” to be featured as a video of the week. I don’t have that one in my collection – but if anyone’s got it, drop me a line and I’ll try to get it up here!